Futures
ESP
b y J u l i a n Ta n g
T
he interrogation room was a disgrace.
Its once shiny titanium walls and floor
were stained with patches of unidentifiable dried goo. Commander Maurice Gilet
sat to one side, waiting. A loud clattering and
the thud of heavy equipment announced the
arrival of the prisoner outside the room’s
entrance.
The door opened and Maurice’s old friend,
head prison guard Bernard Marchand,
entered carrying an e-clipboard. “Prisoner
AX-5777, as requested, Sir. Just transferred
from holding at the Virgin leisure colony on
Maldives-592.”
“Thanks, Bernard — you can drop the
‘Sir’,” he grinned, weakly. It had been a long
week. “This is our prime suspect in the Virgin cruiser explosion?”
“Yes, but you’ve not interviewed one
of these before, have you? They’re totally
aquatic, so the translation unit has given it a
human voice — you’ll approve, I think.” He
gave a wink and backed out of the room.
Maurice walked round the large, cylindrical water tank that held his captive. He stared
at the contents curiously, and not without
some amusement. The prisoner looked
like a giant sea anemone. He glanced at the
translation unit hovering beside the glass to
check that it was functioning correctly, and
sat back down.
“Do you like what you see, Commander
Gilet?”
They had given it the voice of Audrey
Hepburn, his favourite actress of all time.
Yet, rather disconcertingly, he had also heard
the voice in his head. Then another strange
thing began to happen. His image of the sea
anemone in the tank wavered, blurred, then
disappeared, to be replaced by an image of
Audrey Hepburn herself, sitting elegantly
on a stool in her famous black Breakfast at
Tiffany’s dress, complete with diamond necklace, long black gloves and cigarette holder.
He could even smell the smoke from the
cigarette, as well as her perfume.
“Or would you prefer this?” she purred.
Maurice leaned back in his chair and
rubbed his eyes. What the hell was this? No
one had warned him that these creatures were
telepaths. He shook his head to clear it.
“May I remind you that this is an interrogation and that this conversation is being
recorded?” He struggled to make his voice
sound authoritative. “You were found, drifting, among the crash debris, in a specially
adapted survival capsule. Nothing else survived the explosion.
We want to know what happened and if, and how, you
were responsible. Many people
died in this explosion, so if you
refuse to cooperate fully, things
may become … unpleasant.”
Her seductive demeanour
changed abruptly. “Commander, you are not in any
position to caution me,” she
began in a tone of suppressed
rage. “Your species has invaded
our ecosphere purely for pleasure. The fact that the only
intelligent life forms there are
aquatic still does not permit the
effluent from your ‘terrestrial
pleasure farms’ to pollute our
waters. Besides, you should
be thanking me.”
Maurice sighed and
took the bait. “And why
should we be doing
that? Is this some sort
of confession?”
She looked at him
with an amused smile.
“Commander,” she began
casually, “as you’ve seen, with
my telepathic ability I can quite easily make
any member of the crew load an explosive
device on board, effectively by-passing any
security. Yes, this is a confession, but perhaps
you might like to ask yourself — why?”
Despite his growing irritation, Maurice
grudgingly waved her on.
“As you know, there are no terrestrial life
forms on our planet. This is because we have
an ancient parasite that infected and slowly
mutated these life forms until they became
sterile — ultimately making them all extinct.
Eventually, it adapted itself to water, where
we have been monitoring its evolution very
carefully over many years. Quite frankly, we
fear this organism.
“Unfortunately, your largely aqueous
human body is an ideal host for this parasite.
Since you started colonizing our planet, the
creature has been reverting to a more terrestrially adapted genotype and phenotype. Obviously, the organism does not show up on your
routine environmental
scans, but we detected
Nature.com
the first infected humans
Follow Futures on
aboard this vessel.
Facebook at:
go.nature.com/mtoodm Infected terrestrial hosts
3 0 0 | N AT U R E | VO L 4 7 0 | 1 0 F E b R UA Ry 2 0 1 1
© 2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved
usually exhale the organism continuously, making for highly
efficient airborne transmission.
In time, it would have infected
your whole population. We will
not allow this parasite to spread
to other worlds.”
Maurice was stunned. “So,
what are you saying? That you
destroyed an entire cruiser as
some sort of infection control
measure? If you had discussed
this with us when we first starting building these leisure colonies, we could have worked
together to develop a cure or
vaccine then!”
Her image shimmered slightly
and she transformed into her
all-black, Funny Face leotard.
Pouting, she continued. “Well,
let’s just say that your commercial developers were
not particularly amenable
to such an open dialogue.”
She paused, thoughtfully.
“If we allow you to work
with us on this, what
about your environmental
pollution? Although, admittedly the ammonia component
may be a useful contribution to our ecosystem, you will have to filter out the rest. Can
this be done?”
Maurice briefly considered the request.
“Yes, I will talk to the management. Given
the alternative that you have very effectively
demonstrated, I think they will listen.”
She wasn’t finished. Stretching languorously
like a lean, black cat she added: “And you will,
of course, limit the numbers of visitors?”
Maurice started laughing. They were not
so different from humans, after all. “I’m sure
that can be negotiated — given your particular talents.”
“Well then, Commander, I think this is the
beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
And when he looked again, all he saw was
a huge sea anemone with its tentacles gently waving in a large cylindrical tank. The
translation unit was now sitting beside it, in
sleep mode. ■
Julian Tang is a clinical/academic
virologist, who still has many story ideas. He
would like to dedicate this story to Audrey
Hepburn, whose iconic elegance, although
often imitated, has yet to be surpassed.
Jacey
Breakfast with the enemy.